You're doing well. I AM back to my starting salary. Of course, it doesn't help that I moved out of the valley ( where I could still probably make more than my starting salary, but where housing costs are as insane as ever ).
Geez. Whatever, people. Second non-story I've seen on/. today.
It turns out, from what I can tell, that the movies on this list are essentially as close to "how it looked in the theatre" without going anamorphic, right ? Not that they're cropped and cropped again, which is certainly what it was made to sound like.
If this is the case, well... that's what I want. I definitely don't want un-matted scenes where you can see boom mics and other off-screen stuff that shouldn't be there. MGM should be made to correct their advertising and box covers, but... it'd be nice if it could be done without making a bunch of laywers rich and confusing a bunch of consumers.
move along, nothing to see here... FWIW it sounds like buying anamorphic movies when you can is best, perhaps?
Ok, someone should be shot. I mean, I don't care if they sell widescreen copies of "Bill & Ted's" ( all due props to Bill & Ted ) that are pan & scan so much ( what's cut out of the shot, really? ), but... you'd pan & scan a movie that's literally *all* about the shots and scenery ?? Bastards. Replacing the movie is not enough punishment.
Well... actually, I guess it depends on what you mean. I find it's a *little* odd that so many people ask this question, since it is like any other hardware purchase: you know for a fact that what you buy today will become obsolete in a remarkably quick timeframe. Even if it doesn't become obsolete, you'll be able to buy your same hardware for less money, again in a remarkably quick timeframe.
With the quick devaluation of hardware as a given, I understand what the question is about: how do I avoid the pain of buying hardware right before an update is announced ? Other than buying right after an announcement ( which presents the possible pain of buying before a price drop, of course ), there's no *really* good way to know what Apple has ready to go.
I understand the PC user's issue with that- usually you see Intel or AMD is announcing a new chip or chipset, etc, well before you can buy a PC with those parts, but you don't have quite the same clues with Apple. Sure, maybe IBM is developing a new chip, but will Apple use it? You almost never know.
Maybe think about it like you think about getting a new graphics card... then realize, you either just take your chances and buy what you need or can afford, or don't buy something that hasn't been updated in a while, or buy only after something's announced. Take your pick from one of those three methods.
Right now, I wouldn't buy a PowerBook ( unless I just have plenty of spare cash ), I'd wait, those are due for an update. I _would_ buy a dual G5. Or a iMac G5. Or, if I wanted a small, simple machine, had a monitor, and wasn't editing DV, I'd get a Mac mini. I would consider getting an iBook- they're actually a damn good deal right now, and were updated not long ago.
are a system where the users files, applications and settings are stored in in a hdd thats independent of the base system. like say i can remove it from the desktop at home, plug it into the laptop and bring it to work, remove it from the laptop and plug it into the desktop at work and so on. the os however would follow the terminal, not the users storage device. this to handle drivers and so on.
This is where the tight control of hardware that Apple has shows a benefit.
We've found that you can pretty much do this already- well, kind of. We have a firewire drive with OS X installed on it. We've found it boots just about any machine - Cube, iMac, G5 PowerMac - as long as you use a modern enough install to work on the most modern machine ( meaning, we had to upgrade using the 10.3 disks for the G5 before it'd work there, of course, since previous versions didn't know from G5 ). We haven't found any issues with booting from that drive... there might be some, and since the OS doesn't "follow the terminal" in this case, it's not really what you're talking about... but it kinda is.
Alternately, you can just keep what's likely to actually change ( like, your Documents folder, and your Library folder if you change preferences a lot ) on an iPod or pen drive or on some network volume ( er, like a.Mac iDisk? ) if that works for you... I know a couple of folks who do that, you just have to get used to dealing with the typical syncronizing files issues.
My three-year old certainly appreciates the simplicity of the one-button mouse. I hooked up a three-button mouse for a while, and boy, did he get pissed when little menus popped up when he clicked a button!
He appreciated the one-button mouse even more when he was two years old, by the way...
Having said that, everyone at my workplace uses 3-button scroll-wheel mice ( MacAlly makes a nice, cheap one ). Except for me. I use a touchpad with a couple of extra buttons.
Not being able to upgrade the video is a big deal to me. The radeon 9200 chip they have is ok for playing basic mpg's or tetris but that's about it. And, of course, Apple doesn't believe anyone could want better sound than what they have built in so *no* mac's have upgradable sound. wtf is that about?
1) then buy a PowerMac- you're not in the market for a Mac mini if you want to change your video card, and besides, if you were setting up a gaming rig, you wouldn't get a PC with a Celeron, would you? You shouldn't get a Macintosh with a G4, either, if processor-intensive stuff is what you'll be doing. Macintosh users into cutting-edge games buy dual G5 PowerMacs. PC users into cutting-edge games don't buy $500 computers, they buy $900 graphics cards!
2) Your statement that no Macintosh has upgradeable sound is simply not true. You just need a PowerMac.
You may not be able to buy a sound `card' for a Mac, but there are a number of USB audio interfaces available offering things like 5.1 analogue and optical I/O for around $50.
Actually, you _can_ buy a sound card for your PowerMac. One ( with surround sound support ) is reviewed in this past December's MacWorld magazine.
Nope, your point is only obvious to those that have used outdated or poor quality tools. The Java community has access to many nice, open source tools that can easily handle hand-modified code.
Well, then, it's a shame you're an AC, because nobody will read your very good point, which, if your demo is correct, I concede.
Generally, yes, but I know that they're giving free/cheap upgrades to iLife '05 for people who bought hardware after a certain date, before the '05 package started to ship. So I wasn't sure if Apple was going to do something like that for Tiger (or if they'd done it for Panther).
Apple does commonly offer price protection, but it's limited. I'm pretty sure it's officially limited to products announced within 10 days after your order ships?? That's the date your product ships, not the date you ordered, which is really kind, and sometimes you get great deals from Apple by ordering something that's later replaced ( I picked up a nice dual G5 by ordering a single G5 right before a PowerMac update, but that kind of thing is fairly rare, and I did have to pony up a _little_ extra for the upgrade ).
I'm sure we could find the answer on Apple's website somewhere, and ( as I noted ) sometimes they're more generous than that stated policy, but... if you bought a Mac mini now, there's no way you'd get a free/cheap OS X 10.4 in June. If you magically knew 10 days in advance when Tiger ships, you could plan your order then, but... just wait until the ship date is announced if that's what you want to do. Or order a mini now, and get Tiger later for $120 or whatever it is.
If you _want_ to wait for Tiger, and you can... well, like any computer purchase, if you can wait, you probably should. You'll get a better deal when you finally do buy.
Major OS releases are not free. Buy a Macintosh now, and it'll have OS X 10.3 on it. You'll get free updates to 10.3 via Software Update ( people are still getting security updates for 10.2 and 10.1 even ), but if you want 10.4 when it comes out, you should expect to pay the full price. You should expect to pay the full price for a major OS release, shouldn't you?!? Did Dell send you a copy of XP when it came out?
Personally, I don't see the new features in 10.4 as being anything _most_ folks should hold out for, unless you're a developer, in which case you might want to consider a G5 and a developer program membership which will get you a beta of 10.4...
By the way, I'm not saying it's going to ship later than June, but Apple's made it clear that it's in no big hurry to ship Tiger. They may ship it later. All they've committed to is sometime this year.
The reason you need a lot of RAM is because its the cheapest way to make your system faster. OSX uses unused physical memory for disk cache, which helps make your system snappy.
While this is absolutely true, the difference between 256MB and 512MB is much more noticeable than the difference between 512MB and 1GB.
Beyond 512MB, you're unlikely to really notice any difference when using a single application, which is what most users do most of the time. Only real power users with large data sets, server/client processes, and multiple apps running will even notice a need for more than 512MB. This is an observation comming from administering OS X machines at a small business.
If you're editing video, you clearly will benefit from 1GB, but if you're just surfin' the web, reading email, typing an occasional letter and using iTunes, like _most_ users ? Don't bust the bank, 512MB will do you fine.
What code-generating GUI builder limits your ability to manually edit the classes? Certainly not Eclipse's Visual Editor plugin.
An AC ?? And you want an answer??
Ok, try this : create a GUI with the Visual Editor plugin. ( BTW, since everything in Eclipse is a plugin, is use of the word plugin redundant? )
Now, open one of the generated code objects. Edit it to include some sort of functionality not there... like add a focus listener to a text field or put a label somewhere or something, whatever you want, it doesn't really matter. Just something you can notice and test in the UI.
Now, test your GUI. Is the change there? It'd better be.
Now, go back into the Visual Editor. Now make a change there, and save the resulting changes. Ooops, did that just overwrite your manual changes??
Open up the GUI code file you previously edited manually, are your edits there ??
My point is obvious to anyone who has used code-generating tools extensively: once you've manually edited code-gen-created GUIs, you're (typically) not going back to the GUI builder to edit that UI, unless you didn't like the manual changes you had made. In my practical experience, code generation tools are full of issues like this- they're good for prototyping but poor for iterative changes. I'm not saying they're poor for all uses, but unless you know _exactly_ what your GUI is going to look like ( and aren't going to tweak the GUI classes to do anything special ), they'll cause a few headaches. And that generated code? Not exactly easy to maintain...
I agree completely. For instance, any interview candidate who seriously suggested developing java in vi, or even in emacs, would have to work very, very hard to justify their position. If you're not using Eclipse or IntelliJ you're making things much, much harder for yourself, and you're much less productive than you could be.
How about, "I've been developing Java programs since JDK 1.0 Beta 2 came out, and every project I've seen where GUI builders were used had problems as a result."
No, seriously. I'm not against using an IDE... for editing text and managing builds. But if you want me to use SWT ( and lose true cross-platform compatability for buzzword compliance ) or use a code-generating GUI builder tool that limits my ability to manually edit GUI classes... well, you should work very, very hard to justify that position.
I probably want to work for someone else, anyway...
That's not the kind of support I'm talking about, and I think you know it. It's hard to find a story about it now, but there was a time, right when Sun should have been pushing Solaris x86 as hard as possible, when Sun stopped active development of Solaris x86.
I'm not arguing that Solaris x86 isn't robust, or high quality. Hell, I was a big fan of Solaris x86 ( and worked at Sun ) back in the day.
I'm saying that now, unlike several years ago, there are other inexpensive operating systems with good tools and support which one might decide to turn to. Namely Linux ( or x86 or PPC use ) or OS X ( if you want turnkey hardware and commercial desktop GUI apps ). Several companies are strongly committed to the first, and Apple seems very committed to the second.
Sun has a history of not caring so much about Solaris x86. It will be very difficult for them to overcome that, sadly.
Sun is back in profit, and has a huge cash reserve (it could have continued making a loss for a decade and remained viable).
Sun does appear to be doing a bit better, but not _that_ much better. They still need to be making money, and I understand people who might be nervous that Sun could decide Solaris x86 isn't making money, and halt it's active development again...
I find it rather unsurprising that they wouldn't make a huge fuss about the 20th anniversary of the Mac.
I absolutely agree. "Surprising" was the parent post's word, not mine. "Remarkable lack of fanfare" was mine. Remarkable for just the reason you state... like I said, they were busy with other things. OS X. Garage Band. iPods. iTunes. Next-generation HD video codecs. G5s. You know, the future.
I'm fairly certain Steve intentionally played down the whole "20 years of Macintosh" thing to keep everyone focused on the task ( and products ) at hand.
He said he was asked, can you make it this small? (10" square)... yes. Can you make it this small? (8" square)... yes. Can you make it this small? (7" square)... maybe. Can you make it this small? (6 1/2" square)... no. Okay, that's the size then.... oh crap!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
That is Steve Jobs' management technique in a nutshell !
After all, assuming that the global-warming scenarios are true, the total amount of farmable lands will not change - we just need to be ready to shift agricultural resources to the north & south and away from the coasts & the Equator.
I can't believe I'm even thinking about responding to someone who would actually present such an action as a reasonable response to a global catastrophe.
Yea, no problem, instead of farming Nebraska, we'll start farming North Dakota, everything will be fine. Better that than drive smaller, or ( gasp! ) more efficient cars, or invest in smokestack scrubbers, or, hell, make companies responsible for their pollution. That would surely make everyone here in the US go bankrupt. Yessirree.
You need to drink a little less of what you've been making, sir. You actually want to wait for worldwide famine before doing something ? Did you think "hey, maybe CFCs *are* bad for the ozone" at any point before seeing satellite photos of the huge, gaping hole over the south pole, or do you still think that was a bunch of eco-groovy BS, too? You're really uninformed enough to think that, at this point, this is all just SWAGs about the weather? What's your area of expertise over there? Yea...
Just the kind of logic I should expect from a self-avowed Windows fanboy... harrummph indeed. Turn off your machine and go watch Fox News or something, why don't you?
There is nothing on the Apple.com mainpage about the 20th anniversary of the Mac... I'm surprised they didn't make a cute graphic of the Original Mac next to the Mini or something similar....
Um... yea.
That would have been last year. You know, 20 years ? 1984-2004 ?
It wasn't like they made special machines or threw a big party or anything. Steve did show a remake of the 1984 video at MacWorld, but it wasn't a huge deal. It seems they were busy with OS X and iPods or iTunes or GarageBand or something else Insanely Great(TM).
For me, play is just as important as work. I want new games. Is Counter Strike even available for the Mac? Anything in the C&C universe except for the first one?
Ah, you're one of those "hardcore gamerz" I keep hearing about. That's cool. I don't have that kind of time or cash to blow on constantly updating PC games and graphics cards, but power to you, buddy!
Anyway, you can google as well as I can, but you're not buying an Apple computer ( or anything else non-Windows compatable ) no matter what, right ? I mean, waiting for DoomIII another couple of months would kill you. Me, I'm still happy with UT2004, but I understand where you're comming from.
I did a quick search just because I was curious, and yea, C&C Generals was out, oh, early last year sometime.
No CS, though, you'd have to ask Seirra about that one, but there are lots of _similar_ ( some might say, better, though I wouldn't know ) games available, though I know that doesn't do it for you.
For me, getting things done is the (main) purpose of having a computer. Not games or tinkering. So my main home PC runs OS X, while my old Wintel machine sits unused in the corner. With OS X sales being what they are, a _lot_ more game companies are targeting the platform, but it's not going to approach the PC gaming market anytime soon- and I don't think that's Apple's goal.
You'll note that I was merely pointing out a flaw in the OP's debate position-- taking as given the very item in dispute--
Nobody can argue with a straight face that an average temp increase of 2 degrees F in 10 years won't cause massive crop failure. Can they? If they can, should they be taken seriously?
If that's the debate position you're saying is a 'flaw', we have a problem.
As it happens, I am actually on your side.
Funny, you gave no indication of that in your post. Go back and look at it, why would I not think you're arguing the "this isn't proven, we don't need to do anything until it is" point ?
I just happen to believe that rationality is more effective than hysterical fear-mongering.
Um, again, what's rational about arguing that 2 degree F change in 10 years won't cause crop failure? And if you think I'm over-reacting, we're talking about nothing less serious than the survival of the human race and modern civilization here... you want me to just say "ho-hum, no big deal" ? Cut down on the meds, man, you're a little _too_ mellow there...
As far as the climate change debate goes, we've been trying rationality for well over 20 years, and time is running out. Nobody is going to do anything about this type of problem unless there's a _lot_ of waves being made about it. Hysterics may actually be appropriate. Sitting on your hands because you think your case isn't strong enough when really it is- that's not going to save us.
I think they are getting hurt again from the time Sun tried to sell x86 Solaris machines and then abandoned ship without so much as a good bye we're sorry.
This has seriously pissed off Intel which has since been making trying to beat Sun into hamburger. Maybe some companies have a long memory. Strange as that may seem.
More than the companies having memories, I'll have to chime in that it's the people who haven't forgotten Sun's failure to support x86. I mean, I'd have given Solaris x86 a moment or two of consideration in 1997, when Linux was less mature and OS X was nowhere to be seen... but now ? Why bother ? What's the advantage, and can Sun be trusted not to drop support again if it thinks it's not making money, especially when it really needs to make money ?
Solaris x86 needs a real, good, strong selling point. What is it?
As far as Intel wanting to beat Sun, no, I think they haven't worried about Sun for years, they hardly compete in the same market, really, they have bigger fish to fry, and that fish is called AMD...
It's IBM that's gunning for Sun's market, and _that_ is a really good reason for Sun to be scared.
"Given...that this warming will cause catastrophes in excess of anything we've seen" flies in the face of the main point of argument.
Don't you see that you're like early European cosmologists arguing that the Earth must be the center of the universe while clear evidence proves otherwise? Where's the evidence that _quickly_ changing global average temps _won't_ massively screw up crop production?
Ask yourself, are you an environmental or agricultural expert? Do you have any idea how small of a change in rainfall patterns or temperature will cause massive crop failure and famine ?
You might be a really smart person and an expert on things other than the environment, but people like you, who refuse to see the obvious, are really screwing up our grandchildren's chances of survival.
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You're doing well. I AM back to my starting salary. Of course, it doesn't help that I moved out of the valley ( where I could still probably make more than my starting salary, but where housing costs are as insane as ever ).
Geez. Whatever, people. Second non-story I've seen on /. today.
It turns out, from what I can tell, that the movies on this list are essentially as close to "how it looked in the theatre" without going anamorphic, right ? Not that they're cropped and cropped again, which is certainly what it was made to sound like.
If this is the case, well... that's what I want. I definitely don't want un-matted scenes where you can see boom mics and other off-screen stuff that shouldn't be there. MGM should be made to correct their advertising and box covers, but... it'd be nice if it could be done without making a bunch of laywers rich and confusing a bunch of consumers.
move along, nothing to see here... FWIW it sounds like buying anamorphic movies when you can is best, perhaps?
Ok, someone should be shot. I mean, I don't care if they sell widescreen copies of "Bill & Ted's" ( all due props to Bill & Ted ) that are pan & scan so much ( what's cut out of the shot, really? ), but... you'd pan & scan a movie that's literally *all* about the shots and scenery ?? Bastards. Replacing the movie is not enough punishment.
Well... actually, I guess it depends on what you mean. I find it's a *little* odd that so many people ask this question, since it is like any other hardware purchase: you know for a fact that what you buy today will become obsolete in a remarkably quick timeframe. Even if it doesn't become obsolete, you'll be able to buy your same hardware for less money, again in a remarkably quick timeframe.
With the quick devaluation of hardware as a given, I understand what the question is about: how do I avoid the pain of buying hardware right before an update is announced ? Other than buying right after an announcement ( which presents the possible pain of buying before a price drop, of course ), there's no *really* good way to know what Apple has ready to go.
I understand the PC user's issue with that- usually you see Intel or AMD is announcing a new chip or chipset, etc, well before you can buy a PC with those parts, but you don't have quite the same clues with Apple. Sure, maybe IBM is developing a new chip, but will Apple use it? You almost never know.
Maybe think about it like you think about getting a new graphics card... then realize, you either just take your chances and buy what you need or can afford, or don't buy something that hasn't been updated in a while, or buy only after something's announced. Take your pick from one of those three methods.
Right now, I wouldn't buy a PowerBook ( unless I just have plenty of spare cash ), I'd wait, those are due for an update. I _would_ buy a dual G5. Or a iMac G5. Or, if I wanted a small, simple machine, had a monitor, and wasn't editing DV, I'd get a Mac mini. I would consider getting an iBook- they're actually a damn good deal right now, and were updated not long ago.
But really, is there a good time to NOT switch?
This is where the tight control of hardware that Apple has shows a benefit.
We've found that you can pretty much do this already- well, kind of. We have a firewire drive with OS X installed on it. We've found it boots just about any machine - Cube, iMac, G5 PowerMac - as long as you use a modern enough install to work on the most modern machine ( meaning, we had to upgrade using the 10.3 disks for the G5 before it'd work there, of course, since previous versions didn't know from G5 ). We haven't found any issues with booting from that drive... there might be some, and since the OS doesn't "follow the terminal" in this case, it's not really what you're talking about... but it kinda is.
Alternately, you can just keep what's likely to actually change ( like, your Documents folder, and your Library folder if you change preferences a lot ) on an iPod or pen drive or on some network volume ( er, like a .Mac iDisk? ) if that works for you... I know a couple of folks who do that, you just have to get used to dealing with the typical syncronizing files issues.
Or, you could get a laptop!
He appreciated the one-button mouse even more when he was two years old, by the way...
Having said that, everyone at my workplace uses 3-button scroll-wheel mice ( MacAlly makes a nice, cheap one ). Except for me. I use a touchpad with a couple of extra buttons.
1) then buy a PowerMac- you're not in the market for a Mac mini if you want to change your video card, and besides, if you were setting up a gaming rig, you wouldn't get a PC with a Celeron, would you? You shouldn't get a Macintosh with a G4, either, if processor-intensive stuff is what you'll be doing. Macintosh users into cutting-edge games buy dual G5 PowerMacs. PC users into cutting-edge games don't buy $500 computers, they buy $900 graphics cards!
2) Your statement that no Macintosh has upgradeable sound is simply not true. You just need a PowerMac.
Actually, you _can_ buy a sound card for your PowerMac. One ( with surround sound support ) is reviewed in this past December's MacWorld magazine.
I'm not sure if this is the one, but a quick google search turned up this M-Audio surround sound card.
Personally, I'd probably prefer a Firewire external device, but you _can_ get a sound card for the PowerMac.
Well, then, it's a shame you're an AC, because nobody will read your very good point, which, if your demo is correct, I concede.
is still some damn ugly code, though. Please for the love of god tell me that the plugin at _least_ puts line feeds after semicolons._Good_ programmers can still be productive without a tool like that, is all I'm saying.
Apple does commonly offer price protection, but it's limited. I'm pretty sure it's officially limited to products announced within 10 days after your order ships?? That's the date your product ships, not the date you ordered, which is really kind, and sometimes you get great deals from Apple by ordering something that's later replaced ( I picked up a nice dual G5 by ordering a single G5 right before a PowerMac update, but that kind of thing is fairly rare, and I did have to pony up a _little_ extra for the upgrade ).
I'm sure we could find the answer on Apple's website somewhere, and ( as I noted ) sometimes they're more generous than that stated policy, but... if you bought a Mac mini now, there's no way you'd get a free/cheap OS X 10.4 in June. If you magically knew 10 days in advance when Tiger ships, you could plan your order then, but... just wait until the ship date is announced if that's what you want to do. Or order a mini now, and get Tiger later for $120 or whatever it is.
Major OS releases are not free. Buy a Macintosh now, and it'll have OS X 10.3 on it. You'll get free updates to 10.3 via Software Update ( people are still getting security updates for 10.2 and 10.1 even ), but if you want 10.4 when it comes out, you should expect to pay the full price. You should expect to pay the full price for a major OS release, shouldn't you?!? Did Dell send you a copy of XP when it came out?
Personally, I don't see the new features in 10.4 as being anything _most_ folks should hold out for, unless you're a developer, in which case you might want to consider a G5 and a developer program membership which will get you a beta of 10.4...
By the way, I'm not saying it's going to ship later than June, but Apple's made it clear that it's in no big hurry to ship Tiger. They may ship it later. All they've committed to is sometime this year.
While this is absolutely true, the difference between 256MB and 512MB is much more noticeable than the difference between 512MB and 1GB.
Beyond 512MB, you're unlikely to really notice any difference when using a single application, which is what most users do most of the time. Only real power users with large data sets, server/client processes, and multiple apps running will even notice a need for more than 512MB. This is an observation comming from administering OS X machines at a small business.
If you're editing video, you clearly will benefit from 1GB, but if you're just surfin' the web, reading email, typing an occasional letter and using iTunes, like _most_ users ? Don't bust the bank, 512MB will do you fine.
An AC ?? And you want an answer??
Ok, try this : create a GUI with the Visual Editor plugin. ( BTW, since everything in Eclipse is a plugin, is use of the word plugin redundant? )
Now, open one of the generated code objects. Edit it to include some sort of functionality not there... like add a focus listener to a text field or put a label somewhere or something, whatever you want, it doesn't really matter. Just something you can notice and test in the UI.
Now, test your GUI. Is the change there? It'd better be.
Now, go back into the Visual Editor. Now make a change there, and save the resulting changes. Ooops, did that just overwrite your manual changes??
Open up the GUI code file you previously edited manually, are your edits there ??
My point is obvious to anyone who has used code-generating tools extensively: once you've manually edited code-gen-created GUIs, you're (typically) not going back to the GUI builder to edit that UI, unless you didn't like the manual changes you had made. In my practical experience, code generation tools are full of issues like this- they're good for prototyping but poor for iterative changes. I'm not saying they're poor for all uses, but unless you know _exactly_ what your GUI is going to look like ( and aren't going to tweak the GUI classes to do anything special ), they'll cause a few headaches. And that generated code? Not exactly easy to maintain...
How about, "I've been developing Java programs since JDK 1.0 Beta 2 came out, and every project I've seen where GUI builders were used had problems as a result."
No, seriously. I'm not against using an IDE... for editing text and managing builds. But if you want me to use SWT ( and lose true cross-platform compatability for buzzword compliance ) or use a code-generating GUI builder tool that limits my ability to manually edit GUI classes... well, you should work very, very hard to justify that position.
I probably want to work for someone else, anyway...
Yea.
/me puts on flame-resistant suit
You should use EMACS, of course !!!
That's not the kind of support I'm talking about, and I think you know it. It's hard to find a story about it now, but there was a time, right when Sun should have been pushing Solaris x86 as hard as possible, when Sun stopped active development of Solaris x86.
I'm not arguing that Solaris x86 isn't robust, or high quality. Hell, I was a big fan of Solaris x86 ( and worked at Sun ) back in the day.
I'm saying that now, unlike several years ago, there are other inexpensive operating systems with good tools and support which one might decide to turn to. Namely Linux ( or x86 or PPC use ) or OS X ( if you want turnkey hardware and commercial desktop GUI apps ). Several companies are strongly committed to the first, and Apple seems very committed to the second.
Sun has a history of not caring so much about Solaris x86. It will be very difficult for them to overcome that, sadly.
Sun is back in profit, and has a huge cash reserve (it could have continued making a loss for a decade and remained viable).
Sun does appear to be doing a bit better, but not _that_ much better. They still need to be making money, and I understand people who might be nervous that Sun could decide Solaris x86 isn't making money, and halt it's active development again...
I absolutely agree. "Surprising" was the parent post's word, not mine. "Remarkable lack of fanfare" was mine. Remarkable for just the reason you state... like I said, they were busy with other things. OS X. Garage Band. iPods. iTunes. Next-generation HD video codecs. G5s. You know, the future.
I'm fairly certain Steve intentionally played down the whole "20 years of Macintosh" thing to keep everyone focused on the task ( and products ) at hand.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
That is Steve Jobs' management technique in a nutshell !
Don't let it out!
I can't believe I'm even thinking about responding to someone who would actually present such an action as a reasonable response to a global catastrophe.
Yea, no problem, instead of farming Nebraska, we'll start farming North Dakota, everything will be fine. Better that than drive smaller, or ( gasp! ) more efficient cars, or invest in smokestack scrubbers, or, hell, make companies responsible for their pollution. That would surely make everyone here in the US go bankrupt. Yessirree.
You need to drink a little less of what you've been making, sir. You actually want to wait for worldwide famine before doing something ? Did you think "hey, maybe CFCs *are* bad for the ozone" at any point before seeing satellite photos of the huge, gaping hole over the south pole, or do you still think that was a bunch of eco-groovy BS, too? You're really uninformed enough to think that, at this point, this is all just SWAGs about the weather? What's your area of expertise over there? Yea...
Just the kind of logic I should expect from a self-avowed Windows fanboy... harrummph indeed. Turn off your machine and go watch Fox News or something, why don't you?
Um... yea.
That would have been last year. You know, 20 years ? 1984-2004 ?
It did go by with a remarkable lack of fanfare from Apple, though. A few words from Steve on the anniversary. There was a "20th Anniversary Macintosh", but it was for the 20th anniversary of Apple ( back in '97 ), not of the Macintosh.
It wasn't like they made special machines or threw a big party or anything. Steve did show a remake of the 1984 video at MacWorld, but it wasn't a huge deal. It seems they were busy with OS X and iPods or iTunes or GarageBand or something else Insanely Great(TM).
Wow. That was really cool, thanks, guys. I had no idea that usage of the word was so old.
Ah, you're one of those "hardcore gamerz" I keep hearing about. That's cool. I don't have that kind of time or cash to blow on constantly updating PC games and graphics cards, but power to you, buddy!
Anyway, you can google as well as I can, but you're not buying an Apple computer ( or anything else non-Windows compatable ) no matter what, right ? I mean, waiting for DoomIII another couple of months would kill you. Me, I'm still happy with UT2004, but I understand where you're comming from.
I did a quick search just because I was curious, and yea, C&C Generals was out, oh, early last year sometime.
No CS, though, you'd have to ask Seirra about that one, but there are lots of _similar_ ( some might say, better, though I wouldn't know ) games available, though I know that doesn't do it for you.
For me, getting things done is the (main) purpose of having a computer. Not games or tinkering. So my main home PC runs OS X, while my old Wintel machine sits unused in the corner. With OS X sales being what they are, a _lot_ more game companies are targeting the platform, but it's not going to approach the PC gaming market anytime soon- and I don't think that's Apple's goal.
Nobody can argue with a straight face that an average temp increase of 2 degrees F in 10 years won't cause massive crop failure. Can they? If they can, should they be taken seriously?
If that's the debate position you're saying is a 'flaw', we have a problem.
As it happens, I am actually on your side.
Funny, you gave no indication of that in your post. Go back and look at it, why would I not think you're arguing the "this isn't proven, we don't need to do anything until it is" point ?
I just happen to believe that rationality is more effective than hysterical fear-mongering.
Um, again, what's rational about arguing that 2 degree F change in 10 years won't cause crop failure? And if you think I'm over-reacting, we're talking about nothing less serious than the survival of the human race and modern civilization here... you want me to just say "ho-hum, no big deal" ? Cut down on the meds, man, you're a little _too_ mellow there...
As far as the climate change debate goes, we've been trying rationality for well over 20 years, and time is running out. Nobody is going to do anything about this type of problem unless there's a _lot_ of waves being made about it. Hysterics may actually be appropriate. Sitting on your hands because you think your case isn't strong enough when really it is- that's not going to save us.
This has seriously pissed off Intel which has since been making trying to beat Sun into hamburger. Maybe some companies have a long memory. Strange as that may seem.
More than the companies having memories, I'll have to chime in that it's the people who haven't forgotten Sun's failure to support x86. I mean, I'd have given Solaris x86 a moment or two of consideration in 1997, when Linux was less mature and OS X was nowhere to be seen... but now ? Why bother ? What's the advantage, and can Sun be trusted not to drop support again if it thinks it's not making money, especially when it really needs to make money ?
Solaris x86 needs a real, good, strong selling point. What is it?
As far as Intel wanting to beat Sun, no, I think they haven't worried about Sun for years, they hardly compete in the same market, really, they have bigger fish to fry, and that fish is called AMD...
It's IBM that's gunning for Sun's market, and _that_ is a really good reason for Sun to be scared.
Don't you see that you're like early European cosmologists arguing that the Earth must be the center of the universe while clear evidence proves otherwise? Where's the evidence that _quickly_ changing global average temps _won't_ massively screw up crop production?
Ask yourself, are you an environmental or agricultural expert? Do you have any idea how small of a change in rainfall patterns or temperature will cause massive crop failure and famine ?
You might be a really smart person and an expert on things other than the environment, but people like you, who refuse to see the obvious, are really screwing up our grandchildren's chances of survival.